First Drive

Due to Les and I failing to plan for Sunday dinner we decided to go to the roasted chicken place for takeout. As the traffic was light, the weather quite nice and the trip comparatively short it seemed an opportune time to try my first drive. A word of warning to any who would travel with Les- he can be rather loud and he is not a paragon of patience. The driving lanes are narrow by our standards and I cowered rather too near the left lane marker. A Mazda 2 is quite small with a very short snout so I could not see a front end to determine my placement in the lane. I also had trouble shifting both because of unfamiliarity with the car and my utter lack of competence shifting with my left arm. Save for a brush with a concrete protuberance on my left as I made a right turn and the odd near miss of parked cars on my left (noted because of the shivers and sounds of my passenger side companion) all was sort of okay. Of course the gear grinding was annoying, but most annoying of all was that the windshield wipers were almost always on since of course I used them as a turn signal. The real turn signal was of course on the other side and I only occasionally managed to remember that. It was a comfort, albeit small, when Les said that had been an adjustment that took him longer than any other. We did get back in one piece.

Oh Aussie chickens are infinitely superior to Canadian ones. They are typically free range or better fed and actually have taste and texture. I must visit a KFC here to see if they have managed to find the small tasteless chickens to which so many Canadians are devoted. At the chicken place there was a linguistic problem I was asked (for the fries I think) whether I wanted salt or chicken salt. I managed to say nothing, but looked at Les. He suggested that perhaps chicken salt was what we might call seasoned salt. I turned back and said, I think, chicken salt. Upon a munch I could discern no difference. Perhaps the guy at the counter decided I was not up to chicken salt.